Final Hour

The sun sets low upon this field of woe,

Where years have bled like wounds upon the ground.

What joy, what youth, what dreams I’ll never know...

All buried beneath the war drum’s hollow sound.

Alone I tread where death his banner spread,

The soil yet warm with blood of friend and foe.

Around me lie the brave, the silent dead...

Yet in my soul, thy voice begins to grow.

Thy letters, worn and pressed against my chest,

Were stars that lit my path through the darkest nights.

Yet time stole more than life from those who rest

It robbed the bloom of love - the heart’s delight.

Upon this hallow’d field where brave men fell,

I stand alone with the breath of war now still.

The smoke ascends like ghosts with tales to tell

As silence weeps upon the crimson hill.

The Ghost In The Mirror

The whole world seems busy these days... Kerala had a few Temple issues - wanted the treasury of one to stay closed quoting some coiling divine serpent that is there protecting it while some wanted the doors in another to open a little wider for women to enter; Tamil Nadu had its share of sex scandals - one where a singer 'me-too'ed' a lyricist and got crushed for doing that and later a Pollachi abuse issue that got politicized eventually. With the elections around the corner, parties are busy trying to solicit one another to form united alliances of utter confusion and as we go higher, we have people from the winged force flying unused rusty jets into politics-created war zones, getting shot to demonstrate the need to replace our fighting planes with a few new ones that are currently stuck underneath a s(c)(h)ammed deal and for the NEWS too, as we, the distracted, detracted nationalists, hail the pilot whose plane got gunned-down, returning without even a piece of that ejected seat. This to me, is so unfair. 

This last particular event especially, took me through a memory lane. A long time ago I rode my bicycle up a post and crashed it into another compound and my Dad I must say, was not particularly pleased with what I did to the cycle more than what had happened to me after the crash and I remember getting whipped as well for wrecking our neighbour's compound with my cycle. Today while reading about this guy who crashed a MIG purchased with my Dad's money (well, he pays his income tax you see, which must have gone into purchasing at least a sq.mm of the tail wing of the jet) into enemy territory and on the contrary, getting hailed for doing that it seems so unfair that the way we look at things have changed in the last couple of decades since I crashed my cycle into my neighbour's wall. At least I came back with all the scrap metal I managed to find when I crashed; and this guy just returned empty-handed (he did not even bring back his ejected seat!) with nothing more than a gun-sling moustache intact and I got busted while this guy gets hoisted... Duh! How fair is life?

Talking about 'fairness', we are all only as good as the world allows us to be I suppose. Little do I believe anymore that everyone has a destiny and if anything that happens, happens only for a reason. Everything that happens, opens only opportunities for other things to happen as I get to see these days. It is left to us to see those opportunities, use it or let it go. You cannot just shoot down a flying opportunity like you can shoot down a fighter jet using automatic guns and radars. 

In life, opportunities come, opportunities go... and it flies off if you don't seize it. 

The problem with opportunities is that we at times, mistake, misinterpret and misplace opportunities. During a recent episode, quite sadly I saw some people I 'ass'umed (yeah, made an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me') were friends and my close circle, turn into opportunists who decided to break trust and good faith to keep themselves safe and secure. While most cut off and remained at dignified distance in absolute silence, some did harness the courage to come to me and declare that they were cowards left with no choice. Fool I must be to trust those words. Well they did have choice. Everyone has a choice... even the a-hole who does not make a choice, does have a choice to not make a choice at the end of the day. However life is such and such is life. Beaten yet not fallen, bruised yet not hurt, shot yet not hunted... just like the fellow whose jet got shot who is a national treasure now.   

Yet trust me, every choice has its consequence, even if it seems like only a shadow that you can ignore with a shrug today, it will hover someday like a dark nightmare that will wake you up screaming. Everything we do will make us think - if not today, someday and I will wait in the darkness for that day to come, to flash a mirror right at the faces of people who don't get to see themselves today and let them see clearly who they really are or capable to be. Today I cannot speak anything about this and if I do, it will be like an idiot trying to sell mirrors to the blind on a moonless night. Values I try to speak of, have already been exchanged for promised treasures and instant pleasures. Let me not disturb those who find these short-term reliefs comforting. Let me not disturb any of those. Trying to make people see through these, at this time, will be like standing in the middle of a whore-house in full swing and preaching about sin. Today, the noise around is too loud and their eyes are fixed at a mirage of permanency and they will never see nor hear whether I yell or shout. Everything for a while and life echoes... ces't la vie. 

Every passing day does not take us into the future; rather it takes us to the past where we leave an unpicked piece that must be gathered to solve a puzzle we are stuck with in the present. A day will come when many will return to search for the missing piece and when that day dawns I will be right here waiting; with a mirror in my hand, to roll my gun-sling moustache and to laugh as they try to recognize their worthless faces.  

Until then, let them shame Sodom and Gomorrah with their ways and make their fathers proud. Go forth and multiply as you please.  

The Cain And Abel Syndrome

There is a strange observation though not that unobvious we might get to see around these days... the ‘Cain and Abel Syndrome' as I would like to call it, that exists amongst brothers.

The Biblical story of Cain and Abel, where Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man; Cain gets so mad of the partiality shown on his brother by Mr. Adam which eventually leads to Cain killing Abel out of jealousy and the entire jing-bang getting exiled out of the Garden of Eden by God the Great…

Often this story is quoted by mothers in the Christian families to reinstall a brotherly acceptance amongst the siblings. Yet, the twist in the story is that children born out of the same womb can be so different not just in a story yet also in real… there will be this one delicate son, so domesticated and dutiful and the other so reckless, wild and irresponsible, the nurtured being the former and the natural being the later, the goody good guy and the bad ass so to say. No matter how many times the story is repeated by tireless mothers, nature somehow makes this syndrome persist to make this story applicable to the contemporary scenario.

Any family where I get to see two boys, I look for the obviously good one who will be helping the mom with her daily chores, living in a tidy room, with a smile that stretches to his ears, all so clean and reserved with no marks or scars of life whatsoever left to be seen or quite cleverly keeping his evil canary side hidden. And then I look for the rogue; the rogue who would be missing and of all chances gone on an expedition or some secret-pack meeting of some sort. The fellow who would have enough scars that could tell countless stories, the ruthlessly straight forward one-the uncouthed. The one you are often glad wasn’t there and you hadn’t met.

However, this yin-yang exists within every human being as well; making one a carrier of the good and the bad. This is something similar to the anima-animus; where there are subtle female characters that exist in the male and vice versa. How strange and interesting this dual personality that keeps the suspense alive in those who see the complicated display of the characters arising from within, all in one soul. At times it is so refreshing to see the streak of goodness in the so called bad guy and the subtle display of a sinister role from a so called good guy. This is not odd at all. Sometimes when nature and nurture collides, the defense mechanism that arises to survive this battle and to accept the survivor is what makes us who we are. This constant battle fought everyday between what we label “good” and “evil/bad”, the values we learn, create and as often manipulate to suit our situation to try and live a guilt-free life as far as possible is almost an everyday battle in this war of life. Cain or Abel at the end of the day, one must realize that the Garden of Eden, the paradise of Earth, is not for either and neither for long…

P.C: painting by William Bouguereau

What To Name It?...

“Hence when did thy breasts hate to feed me?

Hence then haven’t they heaved to need me?

Oh Mother! Why art thou so silent?

Those bombs and those ammos from the machine guns, they bother me no more.

They sound like a lullaby to me.

Wasn’t it you who reassured me that ‘this is life’ even before I was born?

Now why do you still lie?

I heard Papa’s plea to let you go

before they shot that merciless bullet into his head.

I saw it Ma, I saw it all...

ripped, stripped and writhing in pain,

I heard your final beg to let me go and take all that they wanted from you.

I cried then Ma, I cried aloud,
I cried my best with all I could;
thought that hearing me cry they would let you go.
They never stopped... and choked I lay.

My eyes still won’t open full and I only see darkness around.

Tears mixed with trickling blood have dried;
And my voice too fragile to rise above the noise outside me.
Oh Mom! Why don’t you shout for me now?

Was it wrong that I was born to thee?!

Why have they taken it all even before I can understand in a life time or more what war and hatred is all for?

Tell me Mom, tell me now from up above
Why won’t a bullet silence me too?”

(A Painting and Poem after witnessing what one shouldn't during the war in the island nation when we were busy complaining of potholes in our own.)

A Muted Cry...

“Hence when did thy breasts hate to feed me?
Hence then haven’t they heaved to need me?
Oh Mother! Why art thou so silent?

Those bombs and those ammos from the machine guns, they bother me no more.
They sound like a lullaby to me.
Wasn’t it you who reassured me that ‘this is life’ even before I was born?
Now why do you still lie?

I heard Papa’s plea to let you go before they shot that merciless bullet into his head.
I saw it Ma, I saw it all...
ripped, stripped and writhing in pain,
I heard your final beg to let me go.
I cried then Ma, I cried aloud, I cried my best with all I could;
thought that hearing me cry they would let you go.
They never stopped and choked I lay.

My eyes still won’t open full and I only see darkness around.
Tears mixed with trickling blood have dried
and my voice too fragile to rise above the noise outside me.
Oh Mom! Why don’t you shout for me now?
Was it wrong that I was born to thee?!

Why have they taken it all even before I can understand
in a life time or more what war and hatred is all for?
Tell me Mom, tell me now from up above
Why won’t a bullet silence me too?”

From the Hunted Hut in a War Island, a Lonely Cry...

Hence when did thy breasts hate to feed me?
Hence then haven’t they heaved to need me?
Oh mother! Why art thou so silent?

Those bombs and those ammos from the machine guns, they bother me no more.
They sound more like a lullaby to me.
Wasn’t it you who reassured me that this is life even before I was born?
Now why do you still lie?

My eyes still won’t open full and I only see darkness wherever I see.
Tears have dried and my voice too fragile to rise above the noise outside me.
Oh mom! Why can’t you shout for me?

I heard papa’s plea to let you go before they shot that mercilless bullet into his head.
I saw it, I saw it all...
I heard you beg to let me go;
Now where did you go too?
Why have they taken it all even before I can understand in a life time or more what this is all for?

Is it wrong that I was born to thee?!
Tell me mom, tell me now from up above,
won’t a bullet silence me too?

Bottomline: “I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" Eve Merriam